Bitcoin Users: Who They Are and What They Do?



Bitcoin is gaining popularity and the numbers of BTC users are constantly increasing too. But how can we know how many Bitcoin enthusiasts are there, exactly? Given that it is a decentralized system, the Bitcoin network doesn’t offer a lot of information about its users.
We can think of two ways of estimating the size of Bitcoin’s audience: we can base our calculations either on the number of wallets or transactions. Regarding the Bitcoin wallets, the number of them has doubled from five up to 10 mln during 2014-2015. This April, a number of more than 12 mln wallets has been reported.
But it’s not uncommon for one person to have a few wallets at once. As for the increasing number of transactions, it could be inflated by both newcomers and older users sending Bitcoins more often.
The main question remains: who are the people that use the cryptocurrency? Are they male or female, and what is their average age and occupation? Who are the most famous proponents of Bitcoin?

Scientific approach

In 2014, research has been carried out by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A questionnaire has been posted on websites frequented by Bitcoin users, like Bitcoin.org, Reddit and Twitter.
Two researchers, a visiting assistant professor of sociology Jeremiah Bohr and an assistant professor of library and information science Masooda Bashir, analyzed almost 1,200 responses to this survey.
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